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Swedish Tour 1998

Tour dates | Musicians | Set list | Reviews

I just came back from a 3 day tour in Sweden with Rodriguez...
My role was to play keyboards. The South African band (Big Sky) was booked to do the tour but a week ago Rodriguez said he might not be able to come...so the band's tickets were cancelled...then Rodriguez suddenly could make it...and then it was too late to get the tickets back...all the connections were fully booked!
- Mattias Bylund, Sweden, 16th June 1998

Tour Dates

Musicians

The Set list

Reviews

Beatspeak 19th June 1998

Rodriguez In Sweden - The Very Cold Facts
A review by Sugar, read it here.

The Swedish Tour
by Mattias Bylund, June 1998

It started off with national TV on Friday...a morning show at TV4.
We played "I Wonder" and "Climb Up On My Music".

Later the same day we played an outdoor concert at "Rolanbshovsparken" in Stockholm. It rained...so it was hard to get the audience going.

We finished off with playing "Spy bar" in Stockholm at midnight. Many of the Swedish celebrities were there! One comment was: "The first time Dylan played in Sweden there were only 50 people there...Now I was one of them when Rodriguez first played here!"

Saturday we travelled to Gothenburg where we played outdoor at "Götaplatsen". A beautiful day with a sunny "Avenyyn" (The party street in Gothenburg)...probably the best concert on the Swedish tour!
The club gig at "Park lane": The place was packed and Rodriguez was in a very good mood...thanking all those involved on the tour! Even longer solos than usual...

Sunday we played at "Mölleplatsen" in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Another sunny day with a lot of people by the beautiful mill...It was a sad goodbye but we hope to see him again!

All the time there was people from other countries that "grew up" with Rodriguez...over here, sadly, nobody had heard of him...but now they have!

I wrote to Mattias to ask him some questions about the Swedish tour, here is his reply...

Brian: What band do you normally play in and what kind of music?
Mattias: I play with a big band playing the "Blues Brothers"-style of music... (Himlaväsen). I play with 2 gospel choirs. (Solid Gospel & Gospel Inc.) I've got my own trio, playing weddings and parties with a vocalist. My favorite thing is to do different things all the time, so I try not to be in so many steady bands. Rodriguez was a perfect example!

Had you heard of Rodriguez before?
No...I recognized the "After The Fact" album sleeve though... A friend saw an article in a Swedish paper (Expressen) a week before I got the call about the "gig".

How long did you have to rehearse?
We rehearsed Wednesday night...Rodriguez came in Thursday...and we went through the songs one time with him...and then we were off to the TV-studio...Since we left late and got a flat tyre on the way everybody was totally stressed-out when we got there...so I gotta tell ya - I wasn't that sure what was gonna happen when the cameras came on...

Do you like his music and words?
Yes -  I guess we don't listen to the lyrics the same way over here...but I liked the songs a lot!

Do you have any of his CDs?
No - I just got a tape with the songs we were gonna play - so those songs are the only of his songs that I've heard!

See Mattias' Gig list page. It's in Swedish, but you should be able to figure it out - just look for "Rodriguez"!

A Fan's Report
by Chad from Sweden, June 1998

I wrote to you last week asking for some info on the Rodriguez Swedish performances...well let me start to tell you about one of the best nights of my life with the man himself. After finding out where he was to perform in Gothenburg, he was to perform at a free concert in central Gothenburg along with Paul Young and another top Swedish artist Staffan Hellstrand (not Jakob Hellman as previously reported) for the benefit of saving the Baltic Sea from pollution. So my girlfriend and I headed off to Gothenburg on Friday to spend the night and see the concert on Saturday night. Not having been released in Scandinavia, not many people knew who Rodriguez was, and most of the crowd had come to see Paul Young I suspect.

Anyway after he had performed eight superb songs including two new tunes....Can't Get Away and Street Boy, Camilla and I decided to sneak into the VIP enclosure which with the help of some passed down tricks we suceeded in doing....using my SA (South African) accent in a sea of Swedes we eventually persuaded his promoter Steffan to see if we could get a photo with Sugarman.... well, Brian to my complete excitement, Steffan returns 15min later with all access passes to go in, including access food and drinks at the after VIP party at "Park Lane" the top celeb hangout in Gothenburg.

WOW!  WOW!  WOW!

So in my slops, shorts and Springbok rugger jersey we enter his tent......the most generous, gentle down to earth man walks up, shows us to seats next to his and gets us drinks HIMSELF! To cut a wonderful story short Camilla and I spent the next six hours in the man's company having a complete rave...with other top Swedish celebrities as well as Paul Young at the after party with as much as you could drink all night for zilch....kroner!

After his brief appearance at Park Lane, Rodriguez returned to our VIP table with autographed copies of Live Fact, the live recording from the Ellis Park tennis ground concert. We left at five in the morning with the memories of an amazing human...a great evening ...an autographed CD...his pen...his glass....and a big smile.....

We have photos from the whole evening...I thought you might want to hear about his Swedish tour......it was amazing for all.......